CUBS NOTES.

Buford a hit-- for day, anyway

April 30, 2001|By Dan McGrath, Tribune staff reporter.

SAN FRANCISCO — Before Sunday's 11-2 victory over the Giants, Cubs President/general manager Andy MacPhail said the team would "weigh internal and external options" should it decide to seek more production from the center-field position, where incumbents Damon Buford (.068) and Gary Matthews Jr. (.143) weren't hitting Matt Stairs' weight (215) combined.

Hold the phone. Buford, mired in a career-worst 3-for-47 funk when he batted in the eighth inning, hit his first home run of the season, then singled home two runs in the Cubs' four-run ninth. Matthews, who had taken over for Rondell White in left field, hit home run No. 2 to open the ninth, then took a double away from the Giants' Ramon Martinez with a diving catch on the left-field warning track in the bottom of the inning.

It's a sign of how badly things are going when a 2-for-5 day means a 34-point rise in your average--all the way to .102.

"It's still frustrating. By no means is it over, but it feels good to have something to show for it," said Buford, who spent extra time in the batting cage with manager Don Baylor and hitting coach Jeff Pentland over the weekend. "I could feel my swing just wasn't there. The extra hitting helped, no doubt. You're going to take maybe 10,000 swings over the course of the year. It's got to be in there somewhere."

Matthews is up to .160, but his roster spot doesn't seem to be in jeopardy. "He's a very good baserunner and an exceptional outfielder," Baylor said. "I will keep him on the team for those reasons. You take him off the team and speed-wise we're not there."

Should it come to it, internal options include Todd Dunwoody and Corey Patterson, both of whom are at Triple-A Iowa, where Dunwoody was batting .278 with a homer and eight RBIs through Saturday and Patterson was hitting .226 with a homer and four RBIs.

Externally, "you're not likely to land a front-line outfielder at this point of the season," MacPhail said, explaining that a team is more likely to move a reserve outfielder if it decides it has a surplus.

Cincinnati might be a city to watch. The Reds are going with a Ruben Rivera-Michael Tucker platoon while Ken Griffey Jr.'s sore hamstring limited him to pinch-hitting before landing on the disabled list Sunday. Their Triple-A center fielder is Deion Sanders, who didn't return to baseball to play in the minors.

News flash: Tom "Flash" Gordon completed his rehabilitation assignment with another scoreless, 16-pitch inning for Triple-A Iowa on Sunday and will join the Cubs on Tuesday in Chicago after team physician Michael Schafer examines him. The Cubs are carrying 11 pitchers without Gordon, so a pitcher will probably have to go to make room for him when he's activated. But Baylor said Manny Aybar wasn't pitching for his job Sunday against the Giants.

"He's a waiver guy--we'd have to get him through waivers to send him down," Baylor said. "We've got other guys with [minor-league] options."

In and out: The Cubs had Bill Mueller back in the lineup after he'd missed Saturday's game with a sore knee caused by fouling a ball off it Friday. Mueller had two hits and was aboard for Sammy Sosa's three-run homer in the fifth inning. He also made acrobatic diving stops on Bobby Estallela and his buddy Rich Aurilia, though Stairs couldn't come up with his low throw and Aurilia had an infield hit.

"I didn't ask him if he was OK, I just wrote his name in the lineup," Baylor said. "He gave us great defense and was in the middle of everything we did with the bats."

Shortstop Ricky Gutierrez was given the better part of the day off, his work limited to a ninth-inning pinch-hitting appearance for Kyle Farnsworth in which he delivered a sacrifice fly. "His bat looks a little slow to me," Baylor said, "and with the off day [Monday], it's the equivalent of two days off."

Augie Ojeda, filling in for Gutierrez, made a nice catch on a popup into the midday sun and drove in a run with a sixth-inning sacrifice fly.

Shawon-o-meter: Barry Bonds' return to the Giants' lineup sent Shawon Dunston back to the bench, but the former Cubs shortstop has been a useful player for the Giants, batting .398 (11-for-28) after Saturday's three-hit day and filling in at all three outfield positions.

"Shawon is an amazing guy," Giants manager Dusty Baker said. "He's accepted his role as a utility guy, and he plays as hard as he did his first day in the big leagues."